The Iirian Adventure
by ShirouHokuto
Summary: Durandal's quest for Jjaro technology takes the security officer and the S'pht to a planet inhabited by an avian race - a planet that also happens to be a hot tourist destination. There are consequences. Wingfic, gen, T for swearing and slight body horror.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **_So - this turned out longer and plottier than I expected. Well, sort of plottier, anyway, but definitely long enough that I felt better splitting it into two parts. Please enjoy them both! And be glad I didn't call this "A Matter of Pinions," which I came terrifyingly close to doing.  
_

* * *

**-1-**

Mark stared suspiciously at the two identical birdlike aliens standing before him, one on each side of a tall, arched, and curtained doorway. They were bipedal and built skinny besides their heavily muscled chests; long, slender necks supported narrow beaky heads crested with red and black feathers, and folded along their sides were white wings tipped in black, making them look like nothing so much as a strange cross between a crane and an albatross. Through the round room's wide windows others of their kind could be seen swooping around in the golden-edged clouds or hovering lazily on one of the frequent updrafts of warmer air.

One of them was offering him something small and egg-shaped that it held in its beak, while the other one spoke in a sing-song, chirping language; through the connection in Mark's helmet, Durandal translated, "Welcome to our beautiful and hospitable world of Iiri, traveler. Take, eat, and be fully welcome."

"I'm not touching that," Mark said under his breath. "It's been in their _mouth_."

"They don't have saliva and there's nothing you can catch from them anyway, just take it before they get suspicious."

Growing aware of the restless crowd of other visiting aliens behind him, Mark reluctantly took the damn pill or whatever it was, popped it into his mouth, and swallowed it whole. The Iirian who had spoken earlier gestured with one wing for Mark to pass through the doorway.

As soon as Mark had gone through it into the next room, another Iirian hustled him into a third room that had an actual door, chirp-squawked something, and vanished before Durandal could even start translating whatever they'd said. That sure was promising. He'd had a bad feeling about this mission from the get-go; he knew less than jack about diplomacy that didn't involve shotguns to the face, but Durandal had been adamant that their usual approach wasn't necessary on Iiri. Mark had beamed down armed anyway - better safe than sorry - but he wasn't looking forward to opening negotiations. Durandal was the smooth-talking, manipulative bastard; it should have been him figuring out how to get to whoever was in charge of the planet, not Mark. According to Durandal's research, however, besides their floating cities and some biotechnology advancements renowned throughout the galaxy, the Iirians liked to keep things low-tech and do their talking face-to-face. Which, since Durandal didn't have a physical face, meant sending Mark, which meant that now he was stuck in a room by himself with a weird musty taste in his mouth waiting for - whatever was supposed to happen next.

Great.

He looked around the room, hoping for some water or something to rinse the taste out of his mouth, but it was completely empty, with nothing but a single low, wide window marring the surface of the rounded cream-colored walls. He realized he'd missed Durandal saying something, and said, "Wait, what was that?"

"If you're not going to pay attention to me, you can learn the language yourself."

Geez, he was touchy about being ignored. "Sorry, sorry," Mark said, "I was just thinking about something else... Would you please be so kind as to repeat yourself?"

"And you think I'm the sarcastic one," Durandal said, but he sounded a little less cranky. "Fine. Your erstwhile guide was asking you to please remain in this room until you have completely adapted."

"Adapted to what?" Fuck, his mouth was as dry as if he'd eaten a bowl of feathers; he wondered who he'd have to shoot to get a drink around here. "Air's fine, gravity's fine, just lighter than usual..."

"I'm checking now. Or I would be if you'd stop pestering me."

"Yeah, okay, just - ow, _fuck_!" A spike of pain had just burned through his stomach, doubling him over. "Ow, what the hell?"

"Something wrong?"

"Just - just a cramp or something," Mark said, taking deep breaths. "That damn pill they gave me, I guess, didn't - fuck!" Another cramp lanced through him, worse this time. "Didn't agree with me..."

"Hold on, they don't have much in the way of a computer network but I'm downloading everything they've got on that pill. Just a -"

Agony twisted up his spine, and Mark screamed. His knees went out from under him, but he barely felt the jolt of hitting the floor; it was buried by the waves of jagged pain sweeping through him, clawing along his back like an enraged F'lickta. He cursed, drawing in a ragged breath, then screamed again as the claws ripped deeper into his back.

"Mark!" Something sounded funny about Durandal's voice, Mark managed to think through the pain, but he didn't know what. "Hang on, I've got a teleporter lock - don't move!" Hah. Moving. Mark would have laughed at the thought if he hadn't been writhing on the floor in _fucking agony_. He was barely aware of the teleportation field taking hold and the cream-colored room dissolving into static, then reforming into the familiar eye-searing colors of the _Rozinante_; barely heard Durandal shouting at him, or the normally soft voices of the S'pht raised in harsh, worried tones. Fuck, his back was tearing itself apart and he couldn't stop screaming, his fingers scrabbling against the metal deck. Grip, he had to get a grip somehow and get up, he couldn't go out like this...

Even as he struggled to push himself up he felt the brush of a cloak against one arm. "Be still, please," one of the S'pht was saying - F'tha, he thought. "Be still and rest, Mark, we are with you." Definitely F'tha.

"What - the fuck - is happening to me?" Mark managed to say, his voice hoarse, and he had to clench his teeth to stop another scream. Oh God, his back was _killing_ him, if he lived through this he was going to murder Durandal for sending him down to that fucking bird planet.

"It's going to be okay," Durandal said, "I'm going through the files, just hold on and don't - oh." Suddenly he was laughing. Oh yeah, Mark was going to blow his core logic circuits straight to hell. "So that's what - I see."

"See what, you bastard? What - what's so fucking funny?" Mark gasped, and even F'tha sounded disapproving as they said, "What amuses you, Durandal?"

"Oh, nothing. You'll find out soon enough," Durandal said, snickering. "Take deep breaths, two aspirin, and call me in the morning..."

"Son of a _bitch_! Tell me what's going on!" The pain had thinned out and concentrated itself in fiery lines burning through the muscles in his back, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

Durandal just laughed again, which sure wasn't helping, and then came the tell-tale click of him shutting off the room's communications. That _bastard_. Mark cursed, screamed as the pain spiked, and cursed again, his breathing ragged and harsh. F'tha's cloak swept gently over him, and through the haze of burning agony he could barely feel the delicate touch of a exoskeletal metal hand on one shoulder. "Rest, Mark," F'tha said softly. "Rest and be still. I will remain with you, whatever will happen."

"Thanks," Mark said, "you're a - a real friend, F'tha..." And he meant it. The S'pht weren't a touchy-feely sort of people, and the hand on his shoulder was a pretty big deal for them. His field of vision was narrowing and growing black at the edges; fuck, if he fainted Durandal was never going to let him hear the end of it, but on the other hand being unconscious for all this painful shit sounded pretty damn great. Fucking Durandal. Always pulling crap.

"Sleep, please," F'tha said, and the metal hand pressed down lightly; even that faint pressure was enough to send pain ripping through Mark again, and he curled into a ball, gritting his teeth so hard it was a miracle they didn't break. "Sleep until you are functional, I am present."

As whatever unholy torture device the Iirians had fed him tried to claw its way out of his back, Mark decided that was the best idea he'd heard all day and passed out.

* * *

The first sensation Mark was aware of as he woke was a feeling of perfect stillness, perfect rest; he hadn't felt so at peace since - since any time he could remember, actually. No need to fight or run or move at all, he could just lay absolutely, completely still and ignore the heavy weight dragging at his back...

Wait, the what?

With that realization a whole army of other sensations poured into his consciousness. Sore jaws, a deep-rooted ache in his back and upper chest as if he'd been bench-pressing the _Rozinante_, the tang of blood in his mouth and the sour odor of it in his nose, a feeling in his throat like someone'd stuffed a wad of tissues wrapped in sandpaper down it, a disgusting patchy stickiness on the floor - God, he wanted to go back to sleep and get away from it all, but no chance of that now. He blinked rapidly, then squinted, but he didn't see anything besides the dull gray metal deck and the lower edge of a red wall. "F'tha?" he said. "You still here?"

"Yes, I remain." The edge of a purple cloak floated in front of Mark's eyes. "How do you feel?"

"Like I fought the law and the law won," Mark croaked. "No, don't ask. Feel like shit. What happened?"

"You should continue to rest," F'tha said, "and water will be brought - you have been very nonfunctional."

Nonfunctional was putting it mildly, and Mark still didn't know what the hell was going on. With the greatest of care, he started pushing himself up, groaning as the weight on his back dragged painfully at his muscles. He hadn't felt so godawful since Lh'owon, probably. Water sounded great, but what sounded even greater was figuring out what happened to him and then blowing the hell out of Durandal's core for almost certainly being at fault somehow. Also for laughing, that bastard.

A glass of orange liquid materialized in front of him, and he decided vengeance and answers could wait a minute while he drank it. One gulp and he was sputtering at the sharp, acidic taste. Orange juice? Seriously? "Durandal, where the fuck did you come up with orange juice?"

There was no answer; Durandal was probably still avoiding him, the way the AI usually did when messy biological stuff was involved. Mark grimaced as his back muscles spasmed, but despite the lingering aches and stiffness there was no repeat of his earlier agonies, and he finished off the orange juice in relative peace while F'tha hovered over him. Once the glass was empty he put it down and said, "Okay, F'tha, time to spill. What the hell is on my back?"

"Perhaps you should continue to rest," F'tha said, which was not an answer in any way, shape, or form. "When you have regained more function -"

"I'm fine, damn it! Just tell me!" He still felt pretty shitty, but the orange juice was doing its work; some strength was coming back into his limbs, and he managed to get to his feet despite the heaviness throwing him off balance and weighing him down. He started trying to feel at his back, which would have been easier if his arms didn't feel like extremely sore noodles. "C'mon, all I want to know is -" He stopped dead as his hands ran into something feathery. Oh, hell no. No way. "Get me a mirror!" The walls of the room were all too textured to reflect anything more than a vague shadow.

"I experience a failure to understand. There are no -"

Mark growled in frustration and staggered towards the door, which obediently opened in front of him despite F'tha's protests that he should stay still and rest. Fine, so he couldn't remember ever seeing a mirror on the damn ship, there had to be something somewhere that would show him what was growing on his back. Just one goddamn wall that wasn't green or red or purple, just one smooth shiny place, that was all he needed... Also to stay upright, which walls of all colors were useful for, but even with their support he wasn't sure how long he could keep going. He soldiered on anyway, one hand on the walls, ignoring the S'pht popping up at every junction to watch him, until he finally turned a corner and saw sweet, sweet shining steel. Oh, thank God, he'd known there had to be some place on board where Pfhor design wasn't as hideous as usual... He hobbled over to stand in front of the wall and squinted until his reflection came clear. Then squinted some more. Then just flat-out stared.

There were streaks of dried brownish blood on his shoulders and a giant patch of it on his right side, but he was pretty used to blood, his own and other people's. What he wasn't used to seeing stained with blood was the pair of ragged, giant white wings with black edges that arched up behind his back, the tips dragging on the deck.

Mark stared for a full minute, mouth slightly open, as the feathers on the wings fluttered gently in the recirculating air. Then he drew in a deep, soothing breath.

"_DURANDAL_!"

Synthesized laughter echoed through the halls.

* * *

After F'tha had gotten Mark calmed down enough that Mn'rhi and Yr'fa could help him clean the blood off of himself and Durandal had almost entirely stopped laughing, the S'pht declared it safe for them to speak to each other. Goddamn busybodies.

"Personally, I like it," Durandal said, while Mark sat cross-legged in front of the _Rozie_'s one smooth steel wall and glared at his reflection. Mostly at the wings, which he had, with a whole lot of awkwardness, figured out how to arrange so he could actually sit. "It's appropriate. I've always wanted my very own Angel of Death, and now you have the wings to play the part."

"Fuck. You." Mark tried tensing the muscles in his left shoulder, and the left wing twitched slightly. "How the hell am I gonna fit the rocket launcher over these?"

"Something can be worked out, don't worry." There was a calculated pause, then a quiet snicker. "Maybe if I got you a nice robe or a -"

"Seriously, fuck you," Mark said, and tested the right wing, which obediently twitched. Well, it was a start. "You couldn't have figured out this would happen _before_ I swallowed the magic pill?"

"I did tell you the Iirian were renowned for their biotechnology."

"That's not the same goddamn thing!"

Durandal didn't immediately disagree, which was downright unnatural. After some awkward silence, he said, "More in-depth research could have been performed," which was practically an apology. "Look, the planet is an extremely popular tourist destination -"

"And somehow the words 'wing-growing pill' weren't in any of the guidebooks?"

"Are you going to let me explain, or are you going to run your stupid mouth until I get bored and let you find out how well those things work in vacuum?"

Mark grumbled under his breath, but waited.

"As I was saying, it's a popular tourist destination - I assumed it would be safe enough for you to visit without further preparation."

He actually sounded a little embarrassed; Mark decided to be generous and leave off the ragging. Mostly. "Yeah, sure - so they get a lot of masochists? Because I gotta tell you, I've _died_ less painfully than that."

"They've never had human tourists before. Normally the pills are tailored to the biology of the visiting species in order to cause as little pain and mess as possible, but since they knew nothing about _Homo sapiens_, they just gave you the standard - no painkillers included."

"Wow. How nice of them," Mark said. He tried stretching just the right wing out fully, but they both extended and spread out with a painful tug at his still-sore back, and he instinctively refolded them. "Do I really need these? Can't we cut them off and try this again minus the surprise body mods?"

"Low-tech world of avians. No cars, no airplanes, no helicopters - they fly themselves everywhere, and I mean _everywhere_. There's no getting around without wings on that planet."

Mark sighed. He'd figured as much. "Okay, fine. So beam me down, give me a chance to get used to using these, I'll find out who we need to talk to."

"Can't."

"Bullshit," Mark said. "I'm fine - good enough for government work, anyway - and I'm not sitting around here so you can keep making cracks about -"

"I can't," Durandal said, "as we are currently concealed in an asteroid belt six star systems over, because the moment after I got you on board I bombed the city and folded out of orbit."

"Oh." Of all the excuses Mark had thought he might hear, that wasn't one of them. "You bombed them for messing with me?" It was - kind of touching, in a weird and very Durandal way.

"Don't start getting sentimental, or I'll dump you into space until all your vital liquids boil away."

"Yeah, yeah, no worries on that front. So we go back under cover, I say a few sorries, play extra-nice..." No immediate answer. "Oh God, tell me you didn't bomb the whole planet. You bombed the whole planet, didn't you?"

"Just the one city," Durandal said, a sulky tone in his voice. "And no casualties. Bird people, remember? I aimed at open and uncrowded areas, anyone nearby could easily have have flown out of the way. Anyway, now I don't want to go back."

"Real mature of you." Mark got to his feet with more care than usual, trying not to let the wings throw him off-balance. Fuck, moving with these things was going to be a real drag - how was he supposed to fight with them getting in the way? "How long am I gonna be stuck like this?"

"The records I copied indicate that without supplemental pill intake, they fall off after an Iirian week - approximately eight point seventy-five Earth days." A brief pause. "They're rather similar in nature to the antlers of some Terran animals such as -"

"Okay, fine, I get the idea," said Mark. "Thank fuck for small favors." At least they weren't permanent, that was a load off his mind. He stretched, rolling his shoulders, and his wings flexed as well. "So, are you gonna keep being a baby about one little mistake, or are we going after their tech?"

"I don't know - I'm sensing some genuine potential in these asteroids, there could be -"

"I'm not going asteroid-mining for you."

"Fine, fine, we're going back. But you're doing all the groveling."

* * *

All that got Mark through the grindingly tedious process of groveling to be allowed back into the major population centers of Iiri was knowing how much blame he could put directly on Durandal. It was unholy, the joy he felt as he put on his most serious face and told the officials at the Iirian tourist bureau headquarters (through F'tha, who had agreed to take over translation duties) that his ship's AI had panicked and accidentally activated the automatic defense systems. Tragic accident, he'd been trying to get the thing reprogrammed for ages but it was so hard to find reliable computer techs these days and well, the overprotectiveness was kind of cute...

"You claim it was an accident?" said the head official, with the kind of skeptical look that transcended species.

"Complete accident," Mark said. "We're both very, very sorry. Especially Andy - that's the AI - he can be a little dim sometimes, but he means well -"

"I can still hear you."

"I know." Mark forced down the giant grin trying to make its way onto his face and tried to look as contrite as possible. "Sir or ma'am, I promise we'll make any reparations for the damages that you require."

"Hey! Those are _my_ assets you're bargaining with."

"You told me to do whatever it took, put your money where your mouth is for once and let me handle this."

The head official cheeped, a sound that needed no translation, and turned away to consult with the other officials in low, whistled tones which F'tha and Durandal both refused to translate - F'tha for reasons of politeness, Durandal because he was just a bastard that way. After several minutes, the head official addressed Mark again. "We do not wish to make any unreasonable demands," they said through F'tha, "but of course, some compensation - a form of repayment..."

"What kind were you thinking of?" Mark said, and Durandal muttered, "It had better not be money," in his ear. Miser. They didn't even need money.

"If you would be so kind to give us a sample of your genetic code," the head official said, "so that we may prepare the _aari_ -" ("I believe that is the name of the medicine," F'tha offered.) "- to welcome your species in comfort and peace."

"Sure, can do. Anything else?"

Another hasty consultation, and then the head official returned with, "If you would, perhaps, not speak of this minor, very unfortunate accident to anyone else - in particular to the interplanetary network media -"

"Wait - you're worried about bad PR?"

F'tha said, "I am unable to translate. What is _peearh_?"

"Never mind," Mark said, "just tell them yes, fine, no talking to the media." He finally gave in and grinned. "Let's work out the details."

After another hour of negotiations, the deal was done; a sample of Mark's blood had been taken, Mark had free run of the planet, and Durandal was in the kind of mood where orbital bombardment usually happened. "I'm taking every disparaging word out out of your hide later," he said. "Just so you know."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, teleport, vacuum, the usual." Mark let the Iirian officials herd him, F'tha, and the other two S'pht who had beamed down with them out of the office and into the warm golden light of Iiri's sun. He took a deep breath of the sweetly-scented air and turned his face up to the sunlight; God, but it was nice to get some fresh air once in a while. Now that he was cleared for visiting, he should take a day or two before getting down to business, see some sights, do some tourist shit...

Three strides took him to the edge of the balcony outside the tourist bureau offices, and he stopped. Oh, right. F'tha and Lharro hovered on either side of him; of course they wouldn't have any trouble, they were used to getting around by air. Mark, on the other hand... He looked over the edge of the balcony, swallowed, and said, "Hey, guys? How about we start the flying lessons somewhere - lower?"

"Now who's being a baby?" Durandal said. "You've survived longer drops than that, and at least there's no lava down there."

"Maybe, but I didn't _enjoy_ them, even without lava. And neither did my knees." Mark looked over the balcony again. Still way too far down to the nearest building platform for comfort. He looked around instead, and this time he could see that not all of the aliens darting between buildings or gliding through the clouds were Iirians; in fact, most of them were off-worlders, and wait - was that a _Drinniol_ swooping past? Fucking hell. He hoped Durandal hadn't seen that, otherwise -

"Even a Drinniol can do it," Durandal said, "what's your excuse?"

"Shut up, you're in a ship, you can already fly." There was a low wall at the balcony's edge, too low to prevent anyone from falling off; of course, that probably wasn't the point of it... Mark tried putting one boot on top of it, then took a deep breath and stepped up to balance on its broad surface.

"That's the spirit. Now you just hop off -"

"Don't rush me," Mark said, gingerly flexing his wings. A gentle breeze wafted past, ruffling the shorter feathers on the arches of the wings, and he swallowed again.

"Go on, jump," Durandal said. "It's how baby birds learn to fly. Or maybe you just need a little push - F'tha, give him a push, it'll be good for him."

Mark edged away from F'tha as the S'pht turned to face him. "No thanks, F'tha, I got this. Really. No pushing!"

F'tha regarded him for way too many moments for Mark's comfort before saying, "As you request, Mark. May Lharro and Mn'rhi and I go to experience the city?"

"Sure," Mark said weakly, as another breeze blew through his primaries and threatened his balance. "Go on and have fun, I'll - I'll be there in a while."

The S'pht floated off, and he was left alone to consider the scenery. It was a beautiful view, really; hundreds of tall, slender oval buildings in cream and pale gold and rose-colored materials with coral-like textures, each one floating on its own separate flat base and washed in the soft glow of the sunlight. Giant vine-like cables made delicate by distance connected them all in an elegant web - not for support, according to Durandal's research, but to provide power and keep the buildings from drifting too far apart. Mark didn't get a lot of chances to sight-see without explosions and general mayhem being involved anyway, but he was pretty sure he'd never seen a city as beautiful as this one. He could stand here and take in the view all day...

"Are you going to move any time soon?" Durandal demanded. "Some of us have actual work to do."

"When the S'pht are trying to figure out what human kneecaps are supposed to look like, I'm going to be screaming 'I told you so' really loudly," Mark said. He breathed in deeply, breathed out, extended his wings, and stepped off the ledge.

* * *

Two minutes later:

"_Holy shit I'm flying this is fucking amazing_!"

"I told you so - all you had to do was jump, just like a baby bird. Cheep cheep."

"Cheep cheep yourself, asshole." But there was no real venom in Mark's voice; the view of the city was even more amazing from an aerial perspective, the constant motion of flight and drifting clouds giving the effect of buildings melding into each other. A sight like that topped off with the sheer giddy joy of not falling to his death or painful injuries - it made all the agony of growing the damn wings worth it.

After several glorious minutes of soaring blissfully through the peaceful golden skies, buoyed up by a warm, gentle wind and caressed by soft breezes, Mark said, "Okay - so how do I stop?"

"What an excellent question to ask someone else."

"Oh, fuck."

* * *

Ten minutes after that:

"_Gaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh look out look out look out!_"

"Tuck and roll! Tuck and -"

_CRUNCH._

"... that could have gone better."

"Ow, my _knees_ - I fucking told you so!" Mark tried to unroll from his crash landing position, but bolts of agony shot through his legs - which had taken the brunt of the impact - and he decided not moving was probably the best idea. "'Tuck and roll'? That's all the advice you got?"

"Records indicate -"

"Fuck your records!" God, he would probably feel less horrible if he'd just died on impact. A small crowd was already gathering around him, half Iirians and half tourists of various other species; a squat little Vylae offered him a pincer up that he politely refused, and a pair of Kukmo squeaked something about calling him some help, which he also refused. One of the Iirians chirped with authority, and the crowd slowly dispersed, leaving him to his tucked-up ball of misery.

There was a definite edge of malicious glee to Durandal's voice as he said, "Do you want a teleport back to the _Rozinante_ so you can lick your wounds in peace and privacy?"

"Would you actually beam me up if I said yes?"

"No. This is for telling the tourist bureau that I'm 'dim' and 'overprotective.' And named Andy. Really? What kind of a pedestrian name is Andy?"

Mark groaned and gave stretching his legs out another try. It was slightly less painful this time, so he figured he hadn't actually broken anything. Small favors. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry for groveling like you told me to and not telling them that the great Durandal, Destroyer of Worlds, was paying them a visit," he said, climbing to his feet and wincing at the splinters of pain in his knees and ankles. "Just - go run some scans or something, let me do my thing."

"I know it will be difficult without your rocket launcher, but try to enjoy yourself," Durandal said, and the comm link clicked off.

Muttering curses to himself, Mark staggered off to find out where the fuck he'd landed and if they might have some form of alcohol.

* * *

Two hours of observation and practice had Mark landing like a pro, assuming that a pro had really bad knees. Two days of flapping around, and he was starting to think he could get used to this kind of life. It was a laid-back place, Iiri, or at least the city he was in - which he had found out was named Kiio - seemed to be pretty laid-back. Every building was open to the winds and to anyone who happened to glide by; the long days were filled with stores that barely ever closed, public art exhibitions and museums that actually never closed, and music, everywhere, all the time. He'd never heard so much singing in his life - everything from formal concerts spilling out of theaters to itinerant singers hovering along popular airways, some of it atonal, some of it operatic, a lot of it accompanied by dancing, all of it loud, clashing, and constant.

On second thought, he'd probably go nuts if he stayed on Iiri for long. But it wasn't a bad way to spend a week or two, surrounded by song.

Durandal, of course, disagreed. "What is taking you so long?" he hissed into Mark's ear late in the evening of the second day. "You're supposed to be finding the secrets of their floating buildings and biotechnology, not learning to appreciate chamber music."

Mark had managed to score a front-row perch to a performance by a group that sounded kind of like a band he'd liked back in his trainee days, if that band had been made up of operatically trained seagulls; a generous application of the sweet liquor the Iirians drank like beer had mellowed him out, but not so much that he appreciated the interruption to his nostalgia-fest. "Relax, Durandal," he said, "there's no rush, right? You have to give me time, let me get into the swing of things - you're the one who wanted to do this the slow way..." The group stopped singing to take a bow and go for a short break, and the attending crowd started to chatter and move around.

"I didn't mean _this_ slow. I'm bored and I want their tech and you are wasting my time going to concerts!"

"Hey, chill out - it's only been two days, I'm going to start tomor_rohhhhhh_ my God!" The Iirian perched to his right had suddenly plunged its beak into the cap feathers of his right wing and started _nibbling_, like it was trying to - to - oh God, it was grooming his wings for him, and it felt incredible.

"What's wrong?" That funny tone was back in Durandal's voice, and this time Mark was able to recognize it as concern, not that he was dumb enough to mention that observation to Durandal. "I can get you out of there in -"

"No no no, it's fine, I just - whoa!" The slight hook at the end of the Iirian's beak hit a spot just between the base of two primary feathers that sent a shudder through Mark's entire body, and he nearly lost his balance on the perch.

The Iirian - who had a pattern of red feathers around its neck marking it as female - chirp-squawked what Mark had learned meant roughly "Is there a problem?" It was the perfect opportunity to stop the grooming, and yet - Mark chirped something he was pretty sure was "no problem," and the Iirian fluttered her crest in approval, then resumed running her beak through his right wing. Mark couldn't help another shiver as the pressure and gentle tugging stimulated the skin beneath the feathers; he hadn't realized the damn things could be so sensitive.

"Are you in trouble or not?" Durandal said irritably. "Because if you're not, I can find better things to do with - did you just moan?"

Mark bit his tongue before another moan could escape and said, "I'm okay, it's this - some kind of preening thing with the wings, everyone's doing it." Well, probably not everyone, but he could see plenty of paired-off Iirians in the performance hall taking turns preening each other, and a bunch of the tourists too, more clumsily but with obvious enjoyment. "Must be a regular custom or something - and God, no wonder, it feels amazing..." His neighbor had finished with his right wing and moved on to the left, and the wing trembled with pleasure at the attention.

"You're physically aroused," Durandal said, sounding both horrified and fascinated. "You find the process _that_ enjoyable?"

"Shut up," Mark said through clenched teeth. He shifted around awkwardly, trying to keep his knees together, stay on the perch, and not disturb his grooming partner all at the same time. "It's none of your - ah, _God_ - none of your business!"

"Oh, but this is too interesting - I think I should run some tests, see if -"

"Seriously, shut up!" At least he wasn't the only one affected by the unexpected sensitivity; over in the shadows of one curved wall there were three Bhorbhi with half their lower tentacles entwined and the upper ones buried in each other's incongruous-looking wings, and several other little clusters of various aliens were sneaking out or hiding in the shadows for some privacy. His partner's beak nibbled past another sweet spot and he shuddered. Fuck, it just felt so _good_ - better than a good massage, not that he'd had any of those recently, and hell, almost better than sex. "Go - go blow up an asteroid or something, damn it!"

"I'm going to remember this forever," Durandal said. "Or delete all audio records and try to forget it ever happened, I'm still thinking it over. Have fun with your little local ritual, and don't forget your actual mission or I'm going to be extremely cross."

"You're an _asshole_."

"Takes one to know one, as they used to say. I'll be in touch." The comm link clicked off - and just in time, as Mark couldn't stop himself from gasping at another well-placed nibble from the Iirian. Jesus, if she didn't let up soon...

Fortunately for Mark's strained self-control, after one more brisk brush through his primaries, she stopped. He took several slow, deep breaths as he resettled himself on the perch, trying to think unsexy thoughts like Durandal talking about anything; after a minute he realized the Iirian was looking at him expectantly. God, right, it was his turn now - he took the armored glove off his left hand and began to run his first two fingers as lightly as he could through the feathers on her left wing. Her crest fluttered again and she chirped, half-lidding her three black eyes, so he guessed he wasn't doing too badly. At least there was something soothing in the repetitive motions of grooming; a kind of calmness and concentration that was exactly what he needed after having been on the receiving end of so much stimulation. He hadn't felt turned on like that in - well, in a long goddamn time, probably, he didn't keep track. Iiri was just full of surprises that way.

The band filed back onto the central stage and resumed playing, but Mark barely noticed, lost in his own thoughts. Durandal, damn him, was right; it was time to get serious about digging up the secrets of Iiri's technology - and time to get the hell off this world before he went soft or really made an ass of himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**-2-**

The Iirian tourist bureau, in the interests of preserving their planet's good reputation, had provided Mark and the S'pht with a roosting ledge in one of Kiio's finer hotels. It was basically a big bowl filled with pillows and attached to the wall of a particularly tall oval building, with a window to the outside for easy take-off and access to the rest of the city; as alien hotels went, Mark would give it five stars for comfortable sleeping, five more for the great bar at the top of the building, and zero for anything like privacy and security. Also, like all the other windows in the city, his window had no curtains and the sun managed to hit his eyes first thing in the morning no matter what position he slept in. The S'pht, who rarely needed sleep, had spent little time in it so far besides the occasional check-in, so when Mark woke up the next morning with purple robes floating almost directly above his face, he figured he could be forgiven for jumping. "Christ, don't sneak up on me like that!" he said, and the robes backed off enough for him to recognize F'tha. "Something the matter?"

"There are no failures," F'tha said; the morning sun gleamed so brightly off their metal carapace that Mark had to squint. "Durandal requested that we cease our searching and instead aid you in seeking the technology of Iiri."

Mark pulled one of the pillows over his head and groaned into it. Fucking Durandal, couldn't just trust him to go looking on his own, had to sic the S'pht on him like he was a kid cutting class... Well, fine, he could probably use the extra set of sensory organs anyway. "I don't guess any of you have an idea where to start looking, do you?"

"Our search has been a failure," F'tha said.

"Great." Mark started to roll over, remembered the wings just in time, and decided to just get the hell up. He felt around the pillows for his helmet and said, "We'll start from scratch then. Let me get some breakfast first and we'll go find Durandal his goddamn tech."

Half an hour and a breakfast of smoky-tasting alien fish later, Mark and F'tha were hovering next to the gigantic cable that trailed from the base of the hotel and disappeared with all the other building-cables into the heavier clouds a thousand feet below. It was hard to get a really good, solid look at the cable while constantly bobbing up and down, adjusting for every shift in the breeze, but Mark was doing his best. F'tha had broken out some kind of S'pht scanning device to use, though judging from the frequent adjustments they were making to it, it wasn't finding much. Neither was Mark. The cable really did seem to be just a power cable, humming constantly with a disturbingly off-key buzz, and there was nothing special about the connection to the hotel's base, either; it just hooked into straight into a great big plug in the pumice-like stone.

"Total bust," Mark said, after a few more minutes of valiant examining. "Oh well, it was worth a shot."

"I find nothing of interest," said F'tha. "I experience a failure to understand. It was known that the cables are for power, and the fact did not require investigation."

"Hey, you never know for sure." A sudden draft almost sent Mark headfirst into the cable, and he hastily put a couple meters between himself and it. The way that thing buzzed, touching it wouldn't do his health any favors; taking a look around, he could see that pretty much everyone else who was out and about kept a good distance away from the cables, particularly the Iirians. Oh yeah, he was on a real roll of great ideas this morning. "At least we can definitely cross these things off the list of interesting possibilities," he said, maneuvering a little farther away from the cable. "Next stop - hmm..." His eyes drifted down towards the clouds, and his mind lit up with an idea. "Next stop - F'tha, you guys haven't checked out the actual source of the power yet, have you?"

F'tha put away their scanning device. "No. It is known that the Iirians make use of hydroelectric power, but power facilities are not considered of interest to visitors."

"Then I'd say we have our next destination," Mark said, grinning. "Let's take a dive."

"I experience a failure to -"

"Ah, never mind. Just follow me, I'll take point on this one." Mark beat his wings to get a little more height and more distance from the cable, then folded them and dove downwards.

The cool morning air whistled past his helmet as he plummeted down towards the source of the cables; the motion sensor on the inside of the visor read F'tha keeping pace just behind him. He almost let out a whoop of sheer exhilaration at the speed of the dive, but the wind would have snatched it away, and he didn't need to attract any more attention than he already might have. Within moments - okay, maybe he was going a little too fast - they'd hit the cloud bank, and he unfolded his wings enough to start slowing down. The clouds were thick and grey with a greenish tinge, dense enough that he could only see a few feet ahead of and around him; he spread his wings out further, slowing to a near-hover, though the motion sensor wasn't picking up anyone besides F'tha. Motion sensors didn't pick up things like solid walls or giant rocks, unfortunately, and he found himself sticking closer to the cable despite its unhealthy buzz just to have something to guide him through the fog.

It didn't take much more than a few minutes by the time readout in his visor before the clouds started to thin out, but it felt like longer, with the world silent and dulled all around him. When the first hints of brighter light began to pierce through, Mark beat his wings to speed up, eager to get through the cloud bank and see where the damn power cable led. A few strong wing-beats later and the air was clear enough that he could finally see what lay below the clouds; immediately he back-winged and felt the brush of F'tha's cloak over his shoulders before the S'pht floated down to hover beside him.

"A curious wonder," F'tha said, and Mark couldn't disagree.

Another few thousand feet beneath them was a long sweep of the deep blue ocean that according to Durandal's records covered most of Iiri, almost entirely dark and empty - except for a thing like the shell of a tremendous navy-blue horseshoe crab that was crawling over the surface, surrounded by the white foam of breaking waves and trailing a bundle of cables that disappeared into the clouds above, including the cable that Mark and F'tha had followed down. It was difficult to gauge the thing's real size from their current height, but Mark was going to go with his gut instinct of _fucking huge_. If he was estimating right - and he had a good eye for estimating measurements - it was probably at least as long as the _Rozinante_ and almost as wide, more than big enough to provide power for Kiio. Too big for a single city that didn't even use that much power, actually... "Hey," he said, "how would you feel about getting a closer look at - whatever that is?"

"I experience curiosity," said F'tha, which was basically a yes, and they headed down again.

The air was thicker, warmer, and unpleasantly humid below the clouds, with a strong smell of salt and rotting fish plus a chemical undertone Mark couldn't place. No wonder the Iirians preferred to keep their cities - and the tourists - up top, where the air was cool and clear and the sun shone. For the first time since his second arrival on Iiri, he was working up a hell of a sweat, wings laboring to push him through the damp, heavy air.

As they approached the giant shell, Mark was able to make out more details of its construction. Despite its smooth appearance from above, a closer look revealed that it was actually sandpaper-rough, pitted, and rugose, covered with thick criss-crossing ridges and lumpy, barnacle-like growths that showed signs of attempted removal; just beneath the water's surface, three long narrow tails trailed from the thing's sides like the arms of a windmill or a fish's fins, drifting with the motions of the waves. A ring that looked to be made of the same coarse material as the shell encircled the gigantic bundle of cables that sprouted from the thing's approximate center.

What Mark didn't see was an entrance. How could a thing the size of a goddamn spaceship not have any doors? After half an hour or so of fruitless circling, he landed on a relatively flat part of the shell near the cables to give his aching wings a break and gagged as his boots squished some of the lumpy growths, releasing a truly disgusting acidic smell. "Durandal, I sure hope you're watching all this," he grumbled, "because I ain't making this trip again."

"Oh, are you actually working now? Wonders never will cease."

"Smartass. Now who's not paying attention?" Mark looked around for F'tha, spotted them a few hundred meters away scanning the shell, and waved at them to join him. "Can you get a sensor lock on this thing I'm standing on? I can't find a way in, but I've got a hunch it has what you want."

"There's a little atmospheric interference, nothing that I can't deal with," Durandal said. "Let me patch in a visual link from your helmet to round things out - got it. It certainly looks dreary down there."

"No kidding, I can see that for myself. So can I get in or what?"

There was an uncomfortably long silence from Durandal before he said, "There's an entrance, but there's a couple of things you're not going to like about it."

"Well, thanks for the heads-up," Mark said. "What's not to like?"

"Whatever that shell is made out of - it'll take a while to analyze, get me a sample if you can - it can block teleporter fields. No rescues, no ammunition, you'll be on your own."

Mark rolled his eyes. "Been there, done that, lived somehow. What's the other problem?"

"It's underwater," Durandal said. "Hope you haven't forgotten how to swim."

"Oh, hell." The bastard knew he could swim just fine under normal circumstances, but Mark was really not in the mood for jumping into an alien sea with giant wings to get soggy and drag him down. On top of that there was no way he was getting into the air from this position, which meant trudging at least half a mile to the shell's edge to jump off... This day was getting better and better. He shifted his weight to look around for the nearest side and accidentally squished more of the smelly barnacle-things. "You sure there's no other way in?"

"There are multiple entrances, but they're all underwater. It's swimming or nothing."

"You always know how to make my day," Mark said. "All right, I'm going, keep an eye on everything because this is the only look you're gonna get - ready to go diving, F'tha?"

"As you request."

* * *

Mark spent the long trudge to the sea with F'tha filling his ears about the results of the scans, roughly all of which went right over Mark's head. He'd never been a science geek, and his S'pht wasn't nearly good enough for him to understand all the technical terms F'tha was throwing at him; he just nodded and made the occasional "go on" noises and wished that he'd landed somewhere closer to the shell's edge. He had long since given up on trying to keep his wings from dragging along the surface, and the tips were getting disgusting from the squishy barnacles. _He_ was getting disgusting with sweat and the general humid, fishy miasma of the air; jumping into the ocean was actually starting to sound like a pretty good idea.

Then he put his boot down without looking and slipped right off his feet, banged his ass against the shell and slid the rest of the way directly into tepid, heaving, and incredibly bitter-tasting water. For a few frantic moments he sank like a stone even as he thrashed around like a drowning animal, and then somehow he got his legs and arms coordinated enough to bob up to the surface and take a spluttering breath so he could curse loudly, fluently and at length.

In his ear, Durandal was laughing. "Oh, relax, you've gone swimming in worse," he said, as Mark took a breath between curses. "It's just seawater. Mostly seawater."

"You know what, _fuck you_." Mark treaded water, paddling away from the waves lapping at the shell, and tried spreading out his waterlogged wings to help keep him afloat, but they didn't seem to make much difference. "You can't even fucking taste things! Or smell them! I'm the one goddamn person on the whole goddamn ship who can and _I'm_ the one you dump in sewage and fucking oceans and every other shitty stinking armpit of the fucking galaxy you can find while you - you just sit up in space all clean and shiny like a goddamn princess, so fuck you!"

"You certainly are cranky," Durandal said. "Do you need a little time-out?"

"I don't need a goddamn time-out! I need a fucking time machine so I can go back and - and fucking shoot myself before you can fucking kidnap me! Shit, before I even get assigned to the fucking shit-ass hellhole _Marathon_ in the first goddamn place! Fuck you and fuck your tech and fuck this planet and fuck every - fucking - thing!"

An ominous silence reigned on the other end of the comm link; F'tha hovered above the low waves close to where Mark was floating, and eventually said, "Mark? Are you functioning?"

"Yeah." He took a deep breath, then let it out in a weary sigh. "Sorry, guys, it's just - it hasn't been a great day so far, I didn't mean all that. Just most of it." He did feel a little better for having gotten the rant out of his system, for all the good it would actually do.

"I know _someone_ who's getting nose plugs for his birthday," Durandal said.

"It's been eight years. I kinda gave up on getting birthday presents a while ago." Mark took another deep breath, checked his suit's oxygen levels, and said, "Okay, I'm cool, let's go."

The water was reasonably clear but dark as hell, with so little light making it through the heavy clouds; by squinting Mark could just make out that the shell's edge extended a few meters underwater. It was easy enough for him to sink below the edge and get a view of the thing's underbelly, and what he saw made him - all right, he didn't groan because it would have been a waste of oxygen, but he was sorely tempted. Hundreds of thick mechanical tentacles hung down in front of him, illuminated by spiralling patterns of glowing blue spots and stirred by the ocean currents. At least the lights meant he wouldn't accidentally swim into any of the tentacles, but trying to find a way through them without touching them was going to be a pain and a half. And where the hell was the entrance?

He struggled through the dark water anyway, his wings dragging uselessly behind him - he vaguely remembered that there were birds back on Earth that could use their wings to help them underwater, but damned if he knew how they did it - and getting battered by the currents, one eye keeping track of his steadily decreasing oxygen supply, the other peeled for any signs of a way into the behemoth, and a vague desire in his mind for a third eye like the Pfhor to watch out for the lighted tentacles and possible sea monsters. He wasn't running into anything yet, but he figured it was just a matter of time.

For all his careful searching, it was F'tha who suddenly darted upward to the belly of the beast, transmitting a calm "Entrance located" over the comm link. Mark's oxygen was low enough by then that he didn't bother whining about it, just clawed his way up towards the lighted spot in the shell's underbelly where F'tha was hovering and pounded on the control panel he could just make out through the gloom, then hauled himself up through the round door that lensed open and onto a smooth, slippery wet floor. F'tha floated up after him and hovered nearby, dripping seawater from their soaked purple robes, while he yanked his helmet off and sprawled flat on his stomach and enjoyed breathing regular air again. There'd better be some kind of oxygen dispenser in this monster, or he was never getting out of here...

Gasping for breath on the wet floor got uncomfortable quickly, particularly with his wings growing sticky with whatever minerals were in the ocean as they started to dry, so Mark got to his feet with a groan and a stretch to have a look around. The wings dragged even worse at his back once he was up, but he gave them a quick shake to get some of the water out and took in his surroundings.

As entrance halls went, he'd seen better. The room was small, low-ceilinged by Iirian standards, and made of the same cream-colored, polished coral-like material that he'd seen in most buildings in Kiio, with no obvious technology besides the door in the floor and a control panel next to it featuring a big bird foot-shaped button, plus small globes of golden light attached to the ceiling. There were several narrow open doorways in the rounded walls, all leading to identical hallways; Mark considered asking F'tha for a guess at which one might be the most promising, decided there wasn't much point, and after getting his helmet back on headed for the nearest one, unholstering his pistols as he went and checking that they hadn't gotten too wet during his swim. He was hoping not to use weapons against a peaceful species like the Iirians, but if shit went pear-shaped - and it usually did - he meant to be prepared.

He started down the hall he'd picked, then realized F'tha wasn't following him. "F'tha? C'mon, buddy, let's go."

"I am considering," F'tha said. "Would it be wisest to part ways, in order to explore a greater area?"

"Huh." Mark wasn't crazy about the idea, but on the other hand, if it meant getting out of the place sooner... "Durandal, we're in, what do you think? Split up or stick together?"

"Stick together," Durandal said, without hesitation; there was a little static on the line, but not enough to make Mark worry about getting cut off. "I know how you get around exposed circuits. Punch out the wrong one down there and well, let's just say you wouldn't like the consequences - particularly not if you destroy what I'm looking for. F'tha, keep an eye on him."

Mark rolled his eyes. "Give me a little credit, I can keep my fists to myself when I need to. What's the real reason?"

"That is the real reason." Pause. "Fine, _one_ of the real reasons. I'm reading a lot of life signs down there - mainly Iirian, presumably handling maintenance, but there are some I can't identify. Don't let your guard down, either of you."

"Understood. I will remain with Mark," said F'tha.

"We'll be quiet as a pair of church mice," Mark said, starting down the hallway again, and this time F'tha stayed with him. "In, get samples of the tech if it's here, and out again, no -"

The hallway took a sudden sharp turn to the right while he was talking; he rounded it without thinking and ran face-first into the shortest Iirian he'd seen yet. The Iirian squawked once indignantly, then got a real look at him and squawked louder, flaring its wings in an automatic defensive gesture.

Mark muttered a curse, stepped back and bumped into F'tha, then held up his free hand to show it was empty as he dredged up his few words of Iirian to chirp-whistle "Tourist! Accident!" and tried to sneak his pistol back into the holster. "Accident tourist? Accident?"

The Iirian gave him a three-eyed beady stare, which was pretty much what the vague not-actually-an-excuse deserved, and squawked at length. "Don't bother, I know your type," Durandal translated. "You had better come with me, right now." And an addition that could only have been Durandal's own personal touch, "You ape-brained idiot."

"I don't know why I even bother getting up some days."

* * *

Mark and F'tha followed the squat Iirian - who was still a good two feet taller than Mark - through what felt like miles of hallways that twisted around in a looping sort of maze. Two more Iirians joined them along the way, after more irritated whistling from the first; they both had the same shorter, less elegant build as the guide, more like seagulls than the crane-albatross look of the Iirians in Kiio. Mark was keeping his eyes peeled in case they went past anything useful, but he couldn't pick up much when the Iirians set an amazingly fast pace despite their waddling gait. The main thing he noticed was the change in the walls, which went from the usual off-white stuff of the entryway to something with an even rougher, porous texture, veined with deep and brilliant colors like gold-laced ore. Throw in some fish somehow swimming through the air and it would be like going diving in a coral reef, or what Mark imagined that would be like, anyway. He caught a few glimpses of actual rooms through the occasional doorway, but the Iirians hustled him past before he could get an impression of anything more than color and light and snatches of mechanical humming.

On the plus side, Durandal stayed quiet. Small favors. He probably just didn't want to get caught as the mastermind behind the break-in.

Eventually the coral hallway they were in wound its way to another arched doorway, larger than most of the ones Mark had seen on the way; unusually for Iiri, it had an actual seamless metal door in it, not just the bare arch or thin curtains. The first Iirian lifted one foot to press against the control pad set low in the wall beside the door, then paused and twisted its head back to eyeball Mark again, giving Mark a chance to see it had the black collar of a male - at least, if these Iirians had the same gender markings as the other ones, which he probably shouldn't assume but whatever. The Iirian started squawking at him again, and Durandal resumed translating. "Before I take you in," he said, "let's be clear - you are here because you are interested in our technology, right?"

"Uh." Was this supposed to be a test? Was there a wrong answer? "Yes?" F'tha echoed him with a whistled affirmative.

"Very well," the Iirian said, fluffing his wings irritably, and set his foot against the control pad. The door split in two, and each half slid into the walls with a slight grinding noise. "Iiko, go back to work, Aaki, you can stay to watch the door - you, tourist, go on in, and I, Yhaarra, will be your guide." One of the other two Iirians gave a disappointed whistle and waddled off; the other nudged Mark gently towards the doorway, through which the first Iirian, Yhaarra, had already disappeared.

"You charmer, you," said Durandal, but not as flippantly as he might have. "This is too easy, stay on your toes in there."

"Don't have to tell me twice." God, he wished he'd brought more guns. He really didn't want to go hand-to-hand with people who had beaks the size of his forearm. At least F'tha was always armed, and Mark dropped into S'pht to warn them to stay cautious; F'tha gave him brief consideration with a distinct _tell me something I don't know_ air and glided ahead of him through the arch. Mark followed them, so intent on watching the Iirians for a single suspicious movement that he didn't even see the room they'd entered until Yhaarra stopped and spread his crest with a sharp chirp that Durandal translated as "There, look."

Mark looked. And gaped.

Even taking into account the maze of halls surrounding it, the room they were in now had to occupy the bulk of the overall construction. The ceiling's gentle slope wasn't much higher than the top of the hallways, but it arched off into the distance in a way that indicated the chamber stretched farther than Mark could see in the dim yellow light. Floor and ceiling alike were a streaked mixture of golden coral and dark metal, rough and smooth, swirled together like both materials had been melted in a gigantic pot; amber and red lights blinked in spiral patterns in the metal on the floor, while yellow globes like those in the hallways hung from the ceiling coral. Between both twisted strange sinuous pillars of white and black and steel scattered through the room at random, wrapped with cables and wires that connected each pillar with the others and to the streaks of metal.

"I knew it," Mark said, "I goddamn knew it. There's no way this is just a power station - Durandal, are you seeing this? I don't know what they use this shit for but it's incredible, it's got to be something big -"

"I see it," Durandal said, but there was something odd in his voice. "I think you need to take a closer - heads-up, translating."

Yhaarra was talking again as he led Mark and F'tha closer to one of the sinuous pillars. "This is the true heart of Kiio," Durandal translated. "Here we convert the ocean's power into energy for the city. Here we produce the _aari_ and other necessities. Here we collect the resources of the ocean for all of our needs, and here we keep our cities floating and flying smoothly. And here -" The Iirian paused, closing two of his eyes and staring at Mark and F'tha with the central third eye for dramatic effect. "- we pay the price of the Iarro's gift."

"Price? The hell is he on about?"

"Look at the pillar, you unobservant moron," Durandal said.

Mark stared at it, wondering what the hell Durandal was on about. Okay, so the pillar was a funny shape, not like they'd never seen funny-shaped pillars on any other planets, though it was true they didn't usually have so many wires plugged into them. And the wing-like arches that extended from the center of the pillar to the ceiling did seem like an unusual design choice given how smooth and sleek most Iirian architecture was. Odd how there was a ring of red around the narrowest bit of this one, too, just like -

"Oh God."

"Now you get it."

Yhaarra fluffed his feathers and squawked something, and Durandal resumed translating. "They are the true pride of Iiri," he said. "Oh, we technicians do our part to keep the stations clean and functioning, but without them the stations would be little more than islands. They are the nerves and brains of our cities, the brightest of our kind, and in many ways the hearts of our world, as well... It would take years you do not have to fully explain what they do, but I'm sure you understand now how essential they are."

"Oh _God_," Mark said again. He couldn't take his eyes off the Iirian body contorted in its - in _her_ column of wires, cocooned in circuitry that ran beneath feathers and skin. "Is it - are they alive? Does it hurt? Jesus..."

Yhaarra squawked curiously, but Durandal didn't translate Mark's questions, which was probably a smart move. F'tha chirp-whistled something and the Iirian answered, "Yes, it is irreversible. When their consciousness dies, the station absorbs their bodies fully for materials, and another consumes the _aarhi_ and takes their place. It is a great sacrifice, but it is always made willingly..." Yhaarra placed his beak gently against one wing of the pillar. "Never to fly or dance or sing again - but thanks to their service, all of us prosper in health and comfort."

"I see - I think," Mark said, and then repeated it in Iirian before their guide could ask. "God, I can't believe - it's some kind of symbiosis, I guess? Cyborg symbiosis? Why the hell would they do something like this?" Shit, he'd only had wings for three days and the thought of losing them like _that_ - getting rooted into a giant mechanical complex or whatever and never moving again - was giving him the creeping horrors; his wings had involuntarily drawn up close against his back, but the soft pressure was only slightly reassuring.

"You have no imagination," said Durandal, sounding oddly distracted. "The possibilities for technology this powerful are endless - they've barely tapped its potential..."

Well, that sure didn't help stop Mark's skin from crawling. "Yeah, I wouldn't throw a party just yet," he said. "Ask them if they'll actually share this - wait, isn't the aari the thing I ate? Oh shit, am I going to -"

"That's _aari_, he's talking about an _aarhi_ - you have no ear for languages, either. You're fine for now." Then Durandal switched to Iirian and projected his voice to ask something that sounded more complicated than what Mark had meant to say.

F'tha was regarding the pillar with an undefinable air; if Mark had to put a name to it, it might be sympathy. "It is a curious form of life," they said after a moment. "To be still and apart, yet connected and functional, and to produce for others; to have the machine coursing in one's self like blood."

"Sounds more like a goddamn nightmare to me." Yhaarra was responding to Durandal's question, but Durandal wasn't translating, and Mark felt a bad premonition settle into his spine. "Hey, Durandal, what's he saying? Are they going to share or what?"

"Shut up, I'm concentrating."

Yhaarra chirp-squawked on for another minute, then stopped, gave Mark a long look, and whistled something short. Before Mark could tell Durandal to quit stalling, Durandal said, "As even you must have guessed by now, you're not the first person to find your way down here; they don't like having people come and gawk at their most respected citizens, but they're used to the occasional visitor. And lucky for us, they have a spare pill or two, which they would be willing to share with us - if we're willing to accept the consequences of using it."

"Shit." Mark's wings bunched up even tighter against his back. "You have any idea what that thing'll do to us?"

"Obviously it wouldn't affect me, as I have no biological components for it to work on," Durandal said. "Based on preliminary data, I can say that it would have roughly the same effect on you or a S'pht as it does on the Iirians, but likely more painful since it's not adapted to either of your physiologies."

"Somehow I knew you'd say that," Mark said, rolling his shoulders to try and get his wings to relax a little.

Yhaarra whistled; F'tha said, "Yhaarra inquires about whom you speak with. Shall I explain Durandal?"

"No! Uh - tell him it's someone on my ship who hasn't come down to the planet, okay?" The last thing he needed was to try explaining why he'd lied about the ship's AI and just who was in charge of the whole operation. "Durandal, you're the one who was so hot for this shit, it's your call. You want to take this _aarhi_ thing?"

"Would you swallow it? Knowing what it can do?"

"Hell no," Mark said, "I like all my bits the way they are right now, thanks - but nothing's going to stop you slipping it into my booze or something if the mood hits you, or testing it out on some poor bastard of a S'pht, so I just want us to know up front if we have to start checking the food."

"I see," said Durandal. "Fine, tell him no, then."

"All right, I'll - what? You don't want it?"

"Was I unclear in some way? No, I don't want it," Durandal said. "It's all theirs. Make some excuses and get out of there."

"Uh, right, fine." Mark chirped the politest form of "no" he could remember, and Yhaarra squawked something with a definite _I told you so_ tone. "So - is that it? We can just walk out of here?"

"You can for all I care. I'm done here."

The comm link clicked off, and Mark rolled his eyes. Thoughtful and courteous as ever. "F'tha, would you mind translating? Durandal's off sulking, I need to know if it's all right for us to leave. And if they've got oxygen around the place in case we have to go diving again."

"Certainly," F'tha said. They chirp-whistled at Yhaarra, who gave a disgruntled squawk that sounded like a yes and started to stalk off, then whipped his head around to look at Mark and said something that sounded almost threatening.

"What was that about?" Mark said, following the Iirian as he led them back towards the door.

"Yhaarra requests that when you leave the station and Iiri -"

"Yeah?" There it was, the inevitable _tell anyone and we'll hunt you down and kill you_ spiel he'd heard in at least ten different languages by now.

"- that you inform others who have curiosity about the nature of our technology," F'tha said, "so they will be aware of its dangers and cost, and perhaps avoid disturbing the stations."

"That's it," Mark said, "I'm declaring this the official most anticlimactic mission ever of all time."

* * *

After seeing the source of the city's power, most of Kiio's charm was lost on Mark; he was happy enough to round up the other S'pht who had teleported down, return the tiny magnetic gadget that had somehow been his room key to the hotel, and let Durandal beam him back to the _Rozinante_.

Okay, so he might have also taken his wings out for one last spin around the golden clouds and warm winds. He was stuck with them for another five or six days anyway, might as well get a little more use out of them.

That accomplished, he was then left sitting in one of the _Rozie_'s engine rooms while Durandal plotted their next destination and a bunch of S'pht who hadn't gotten a vacation or a chance to stare earlier poked and prodded at his wings. It wasn't the most fun he'd ever had, but he found it hard to begrudge the S'pht their chance to play around; Durandal worked them almost as hard as he did Mark, and would probably work them even harder if it weren't for the S'pht'Kr keeping an eye on him.

One of them hit a sensitive spot under the feathers with some instrument or other, and Mark winced. Definitely not as pleasant as when that Iirian at the concert had been doing the same. To take his mind off it, he said, "Hey, Durandal? You sure you don't want me to go back down there for that airy stuff?"

"_Aarhi_, and yes, I'm sure."

For having wasted three days on failing to get something he wanted, Durandal sounded surprisingly chill, and Mark decided to push things a little. "Come on, I heard the guy say 'Iarro,' and even I can figure out that's just another way of saying Jjaro," he said. "You're really going to walk away from that?"

"Watch me. It's a big galaxy; there will be other opportunities."

"I got to say, that doesn't sound like - ow, Jesus, watch the pin feathers, S'hral! Doesn't sound like you."

"You're not going to drop this unless I explain, are you," Durandal said.

"Nope."

"Fine, whatever. The pills are damn near impossible to analyze while inactive, and once activated whoever swallowed them would be rooted in the _Rozinante_. I don't need another mind trying to take control of my ship, particularly not yours." There was a slight pause before Durandal grudgingly added, "Besides, you're marginally more useful to me mobile."

"Aww, really?" Mark said, starting to grin in spite of himself.

"I know what you're thinking, and stop it."

"I'm touched, buddy. That's almost sweet of you."

"I wouldn't start gushing just yet," said Durandal. "You're still not off the hook for that 'Andy' business, and I did take the liberty of helping myself to a few of the tourists' _aari_ - just in case we run into any other planets where wings might come in handy."

"Oh, fuck. At least tell me you got the ones they were working on for humans?"

"I was in a hurry and forgot to check the labels; you'll be lucky if you don't end up with tentacles like a Bhorbh."

Mark groaned, and his left wing twitched at another poke in the wrong spot from a curious S'pht. "That's what I love about you," he told Durandal, "your sheer dedication to making my life hell in ways I never dreamed of."

"I could say the same for you," Durandal said. "Cheer up, our next stop is known for its textiles, so I can finally get you that angel robe I've been designing for the last few days..."

"Go to hell, asshole."


End file.
